THE MCCARTHY ERA How leftist laborer fell victim to Red Scare

The late Youngstowner's Senate hearing transcripts have been released.
By DAVID ENRICH
STATES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- After 33 years in America, Joseph A. Picucci felt his patriotism should be beyond question.
Born in Italy in 1899, Picucci immigrated to the United States when he was 22 years old and settled in Youngstown.
In 1927, he took an oath of allegiance and became an American citizen.
For the next quarter-century, Picucci toiled in steel mills in Youngstown, Cleveland, then Bethlehem, Pa.
He was a millwright, repairing machines and the open-hearth furnaces where steel is made.
So what if he dabbled with some left-leaning -- or even communist -- labor groups? That was a question of politics, not patriotism. After all, his son Michael was an Air Force sergeant in World War II.
But at the height of America's Red Scare in the 1950s, Sen. Joseph McCarthy and other communist-hunting politicians said they were protecting national security by exposing people like Picucci.
Political persecution
Picucci's experience, buried in thousands of pages of newly released transcripts of McCarthy's private Senate hearings, is a vivid illustration of persecution based on little more than political beliefs.
On a December morning in 1954, Picucci -- described by a coworker as a "heavy, chunky fellow" -- was in a U.S. Senate hearing room, waiting to testify before a private session of McCarthy's investigative panel.
The hearing on alleged subversion and spying in the defense industry was closed to the public and the press.
As Picucci sat with his lawyer at the back of the room, an undercover FBI agent detailed Picucci's long-standing communist ties, dating to his role in founding Youngstown's branch of the International Workers Order, a communist group.
McCarthy's committee was especially worried about Picucci's work for Bethlehem Steel Corp. The U.S. military, locked in a war against Korean communists, was heavily dependent on steel, and striking steel workers were seen as a threat to military strength.
"Bethlehem Steel definitely has contracts with the government, and where Joseph Picucci is employed, it would be dangerous to have a communist working in that department," the FBI's Herman E. Thomas testified.
He quickly added, though, that there was no evidence that Picucci was an agent of the Soviet Union or that he was inappropriately collecting or sharing information about Bethlehem Steel.
"I might say the only party assignments that I know of Joe receiving was to distribute Communist Party literature within the plant, try to recruit steel workers into the party," Thomas said.
Refuses to answer
Picucci was the next witness. Senators and committee lawyers asked a dozen variations of the same question: Are you a communist? Each time, Picucci refused to answer, citing his constitutional right not to testify against himself.
One of the few questions that Picucci answered was if he had served or would ever serve as a Soviet spy, or sabotage the steel plant to help communists. "I will not commit espionage, no matter who ordered me to," he said.
Picucci was instructed to return the next morning for another hearing, this one open to the public and the press.
The next day
An onslaught awaited him.
In front of a crowd of reporters, photographers and curious spectators, Thomas changed a key part of his story.
And a committee lawyer -- future U.S. attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy -- managed to paint Picucci as a sneaky foreigner with something to hide.
One of the committee's Republican senators, Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota, asked Thomas whether there was a "possible security risk of having a man like Mr. Picucci ... or other communist workers employed in the Bethlehem Steel plants? Would it enable them to ferret out information to communist sources?"
Thomas took the bait.
"Senator, I think these employees of the Bethlehem Steel who are members of the Communist Party are in a very good position to forward information to the Communist Party" he said.
He explained that low-level communists like Picucci pass on information about the plant's operations to their superiors.
"These facts are assimilated and find their way to the Soviet Union," Thomas said.
Never mind that Thomas had said the day before that Picucci wasn't involved in such information-gathering. The transcript of Thomas's earlier statement remained sealed for nearly 50 years.
Then it was Picucci's turn to testify.
At first, the questioning followed a trajectory similar to the previous day's hearing. Picucci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Lawyer's questioning
But the tone changed when Kennedy, who was counsel to the committee's Democrats, started asking questions that seemed designed to tar Picucci in the eyes of the public and the press.
"Do you belong to an organization which advocates the forceful overthrow of this government?" Kennedy asked.
"Not to my knowledge, sir," Picucci said after consulting with his lawyer.
"Then your answer is you don't know definitely whether you belong to an organization which advocates the forceful overthrow of this government?" Kennedy asked.
"Not to my knowledge," Picucci said.
"Do you believe the Communist Party advocates the forceful overthrow of this government by force and violence?" Kennedy asked.
"I have no information of that sort, sir," Picucci said.
"Mr. Picucci," Kennedy said, "I think a person would know whether or not he belonged to an organization which advocated the forceful overthrow of the government. Now, you said not to your knowledge. Don't you know definitely whether you belong to such an organization? That is not a difficult question."
"I told you not to my knowledge," Picucci said.
"Well, back in April of 1927, when you took this oath [swearing allegiance to the United States], did you belong at that time to an organization which advocated the forceful overthrow of this government?" Kennedy asked.
"Not to my knowledge," Picucci said.
Satisfied that the damage was done, Kennedy thanked Picucci and returned to his seat.
Loses job
For several minutes, senators and committee lawyers continued to pepper Picucci with questions. Then Mundt wrapped up the hearing with bad news for Picucci.
Any suspected communist who doesn't publicly refute the allegation "is not a suitable employee to work in a defense plant in the kind of world that we live in," Mundt declared.
"It is going to be our recommendation to Bethlehem Steel that any employee who responds as you have responded, in the interest of the national defense, should be summarily removed."
The next day, Bethlehem Steel fired Picucci and another suspected communist.
Picucci, 55 years old at the time, never held another full-time job, although he took on odd jobs as a handyman.
He and his wife, Maria Grace Picucci, moved in with their adult son, the Air Force veteran. The elder Picucci died from Parkinson"s disease in 1975.
Daughter remembers
Picucci's daughter, Gemma R. Welsh, was 23 years old when her father was dragged before the McCarthy committee.
Now living in Reading, Pa., Welsh said she didn't want to talk about how her father and family endured the ordeal. Some younger family members, she said, are unaware of the experience.
"That happened so long ago," said Welsh, now 72. "He never did anything wrong."